Electric shears have been proposed to save labor in, for example, pruning garden trees in which a shears is manually opened and closed (see, e.g., JP 63-281680 A). The electric shears has a fixed blade and a movable blade. A cutting operation is performed by moving the movable blade with respect to the fixed blade. The movable blade is moved by a link connected to a nut that is moved back and forth in accordance with a rotation of a screw shaft. A trigger is attached to the nut. The screw shaft is rotated by a motor that is actuated by pulling the trigger, whereby the movement of the movable blade is made to interlock with the pulling operation the trigger.
Accordingly, in the electric shears described above, the moving amount of the movable blade can be controlled based on a pulled position of the trigger. However, because a finger needs to be moved in accordance with the movement of the trigger, which moves back and forth together with the movement of the nut, the operational feeling has been unnatural. In addition, because the trigger is moved along with the movement of the nut, an opening corresponding to the movement of the trigger needs to be formed in a cover. However, there has been a fear that dust or sand may enter the opening during the operation and a machine life may be reduced.